Apology Strategies: Appropriateness and Frequency of Use by Saudi EFL Students

Abstract

The present study aimed at investigating the apology strategies employed by Saudi FEL university students. The researcher examined the appropriateness of participants’ apologies, first through analyzing them in terms of Olshtain and Cohen’s “semantic formulas in the apology speech act set” (Olshtain & Cohen, 1983), then by having native speakers of English to evaluate them for appropriateness on a four-point Likert scale. Results indicated that “illocutionary force indicating device” (e.g., I am sorry) was the most frequently used strategy as it was utilized in 75% of the responses. As for the appropriateness of the apology strategies used by Saudi EFL undergraduate students, 23.4% of the responses to the situations that required apology were inappropriate or strongly inappropriate. Exposure to culturally dense language content was suggested to help EFL learners utilize apologies appropriately.